


Silent Touches

by MidnightMare



Series: bandfluff [2]
Category: SHINee
Genre: Band Fic, Fluff, M/M, Other, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 09:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12861768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightMare/pseuds/MidnightMare
Summary: So I guess this could be described as the 'prequel' series to my Small Touches bandfic drabble series. Basically all that means is that this showcases moments between ot5 before their relationships have deepened to the extent shown in Small Touches. Also, as usual, this is all 2min's fault, so I'll be starting with them again.The video that made me decide I just had to go back before the beginning of Small Touches:https://www.facebook.com/391089767606264/videos/1460172394031324/Also if it wasn't made obvious enough in Small Touches, that fic begins in late 2014ish. So this could theoretically give me room to add all the way up to that point in SHINee's timeline. Which basically means I'm looking forward to continue adding to this series for the indeterminable future because it brings me great joy*also posted on aff**this is also completely self-indulgent*





	Silent Touches

It was a slight touch, nothing more.

                A quiet grasp of Taemin’s hand, wrapping nimbly around Jinki’s blue-jacketed elbow, disappearing in the next quick second. Jinki leaned over to place his ear near Taemin’s mouth, staring continuously ahead at the line of cameras glaring at the assembled idols, the slightest shadow of confusion falling over his face, and there was another quick, light touch, Taemin’s pinky brushing against his upper arm as he patted the armrest between them twice, almost thrice. Nervous.

                “Hyung. Is it okay if I move behind you?” he’d breathed against Jinki’s ear, twice, for the loudness of the auditorium. Jinki had hummed, almost silently, just the movement of his throat catching Taemin’s eye as he got up and walked swiftly around Jinki, to the row of seats just behind them, to the empty one next to Minho’s. Jinki glanced quickly behind at them, and gathered himself up to move one seat over next to Jonghyun and Kibum, the memory of Taemin’s legs still warming the seat. All three dark-haired elder heads turned in unison to watch their youngest members in the row behind.

                Minho looked quizzical as Taemin deliberately took the empty seat next to him, leaning into his space and claiming the armrest with his elbow. Minho’s arm automatically took to Taemin’s shoulders, however, his palm warmly resting over the blade, fingertips nearing Taemin’s white vest collar. He ducked his head close to Taemin’s warm mouth. “What’s up?”

                “You were alone.” Taemin’s mouth quirked. Minho moved his shoulders in the tiniest shrug possible, as if it didn’t matter that there weren’t enough seats at the end of the first row to fit the five of them. “Whatever, you probably missed us. I was just doing you a favor,” Taemin muttered then, unable to keep a grin at bay. He leaned forward away from Minho’s arm, though, resting his elbows on his knees, his straightened black bangs flicking sleekly over his brows and into his eyes.

                Minho grinned himself and let a silent chuckle rumble his chest, catching Kibum’s overt glance and Jonghyun’s whatever shrug and Jinki’s obnoxiously wide smile in the commotion at the corner of his eye. The hyungs always acted so silly. He brought his elbow to the armrest between Taemin’s seat and his as it was empty, letting his long fingers rest on his chin, his dark eyes warm and trained on Taemin, who focused resolutely on the main stage even as he continued to talk and gesture toward it. They were just slight touches, nothing more, really. Half-second touches, and noiseless too.

                Still, they were the touches that were comfortable between Minho and Taemin, and Minho couldn’t help the little shock-tingles of warmth that spread rapidly throughout the insides of his chest, emanating from sudden palmprints against his stage clothes or within the space surrounding him, those little sparks ensuing from more and more silent touches from Taemin in recent months. Minho could only hope they meant as much to Taemin.

                 “Wow, their dancing is so good,” Taemin said then, still quiet but not keeping his voice quieter than breath any longer. Minho hummed noncommittally, not really paying attention to the stage. He would soon, as it came closer to their own turn to perform. He shifted in the black pleather-seated chair, his jacket uncomfortably enclosing his arms as he suddenly became aware of the heated crowd. Taemin glanced at him at the lack of response, dark brows drawing minutely together beneath his bangs. “You okay?”

                “Oh, yeah, fine,” Minho said quickly, squaring his shoulders against the back of his chair again. His gaze flicked to Jinki just off to the side in front of him. He could almost imagine their leader with puppy ears pricked to attention, listening for anything of concern among his group. Taemin’s smile quieted, but with a quick glance to either side, he ducked his head and drew his shallowly hooked nose along Minho’s cheek, just for a second. Minho’s heart stuttered, pathetically. How could he be at the point where a half-assed eskimo-kiss flatlined his heartbeat?

 

Minho wasn’t sure he could ever quite be sure when his fluttery emotions for Taemin had illustrated themselves as full-flung feelings inside his head. And even thinking that way made him feel all gooey inside, as though his feelings didn’t quite matter because, quite frankly, they were the gayest he’d ever felt, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with that fact.

                He felt like he was on the ever-constant edge of a hiccup around Taemin, as though if he weren’t very careful, these fully-fledged feelings would fling themselves out into the open in the air between them, and he was determined to prevent such a drastic action. Taemin was, and would always be, the baby of the little family they’d managed to make for themselves, and didn’t deserve to have the burden of Minho’s feelings before he was old enough to have quite figured himself out.

                Then again, Minho felt like it wasn’t fair for him to be assigning a burden onto Taemin when perhaps they wouldn’t be so at all.

 

“Hyung.”

                Jinki straightened from where he was making up his bed, pulling his flattened hands from stuffing in the sides of his yellow coverlet between their squeezed-together mattresses. Minho was standing against the opposite wall, tall and covered from head-to-toe in a black tracksuit, his hair long over-due for a haircut and falling over his dark wide eyes. His lips were dark pink, as they often became when he’d been pressing them together in thought.

                “What’s up?” Jinki asked, shooting an eye-smile Minho’s way, knowing it should get at least an eye-roll in return. It did, which meant that Minho wasn’t about to burst into unexpected sobs. Minho was never a good crier to be around—he kept everything bottled so much up that when it came time for a release, it often lasted for an age. Instead, Minho’s gaze shifted here and there for a good few moments as Jinki sat down on the end of his fresh bed, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees and looking up encouragingly at Minho’s hesitant form.

                It seemed as if Minho had just come to a decision when he opened his mouth—but then Taemin’s voice echoed down the hallway and leaked into the bedroom, the door cracked still, though it had drifted shut behind Minho—"Has anyone seen my math book? I really need to go over equation formulas for my exam tomorrow—"

                Kibum’s voice followed from elsewhere in their small apartment. “Yah, was it the blue one?”

                Minho straightened, and resolve cleared his eyes. “Nothing, I was just wondering if you wanted to have a match with me?” he gestured toward the living room.

                Jinki hesitated. “All right,” he agreed a moment later, still watching Minho shrewdly as he passed him for the hall, leading the way toward the couch and the gaming console. Jonghyun and Kibum were in the living room as well, in side-by-side roller chairs at the shared computer desk in the corner. Kibum’s leg was tucked up beside him on his hard silver chair and he rested his chin on it, watching Jonghyun click through composition applications on the screen. Jonghyun suddenly turned to Kibum, his fingers pausing, wrists tucked up against the clunky keyboard resting on the drawer that slid out from beneath the desk, opening his mouth, and caught Minho sitting down with Jinki on the edge of their smooth tawny couch, handling game controllers. His eyebrows raised subtly at Jinki, only to be dismissed by a slight shake of the head. He shrugged then slightly, ignoring Kibum’s sudden look of interest, and turned back to the computer.

                As Minho set up the soccer game on the console, Jinki wandered into the kitchen to flick on the tea kettle, finding Taemin slouched in a chair at the table, his math book lying open along with the carefully folded spiral notebook he was scribbling formulas on. Jinki leaned slightly over the back of his chair, bumping his elbows with Taemin’s shoulder blades and ruffling the back ends of his hair. “School okay?”

                Taemin hummed and nodded, finishing a column of example problems. “It’s been better lately.”

                “That’s good,” Jinki smiled and pressed a quick peck to the back of Taemin’s head, straightening again to rummage for a spare bag of green tea in the tea basket. He was always forgetting to grab more whenever he was out.

                “Are you playing a game with Minho-hyung?” The question followed the sudden trill of theme music from the opening page of the video game, the hyper sounds bleeding in from the living room. Jinki nodded, his hands intermittently moving across the stream of steam issuing from the spout of the kettle, drawing lines of heat over his palms. “Yep.”

                “I want to play,” Taemin sighed, looking woefully at his textbook. He even usually liked math.

                “You can take my place after a game or two,” Jinki promised, meeting Taemin’s eyes and smiling. “Like a pre-test encouragement reward because we all know you’ll pass anyway. Just finish your review first.”

                Taemin nodded, a slight smile tugging the corners of his full lips, and Jinki touched his shoulder again on the way out, a steaming mug gripped in hand and settled carefully between his feet on the floor when he sat on the couch, taking the controller Minho proffered. A snort caught Jinki’s glance as Minho went into intense-position-mode, leaning fully onto his knees, back slanted, eyes fiery at the television screen, and he looked over at Jonghyun muffling a laugh into the back of his hand at a comment from Kibum, who was smacking Jonghyun’s upper arm in admonishment. “Yah, that’s not what I meant, you—,” and a short squeal echoed from Taemin’s chair moving over the kitchen floor resounded then as he shuffled over to the white-trimmed opening between the living room and kitchen, his head popping out to look at Kibum’s commotion, and Jinki rubbed shoulders with Minho, carefully not letting his toes near his steaming hot mug of tea even as Minho kicked off the game ferociously, determinedly keeping his gaze on his avatar and Jinki’s, and Jinki wondered if Taemin noticed how very good Minho was at not looking at him, in an unordinary way.

 

“Hey Jinki?”

                Kibum didn’t often drop honorifics with Jinki, as a rule, but in the darkness, when Minho and Taemin were fast asleep and huddled into their pillows as the heat dropped down again, and Jonghyun had already escaped the confines of the bedroom and the leaden weights of his blankets, the lumps of pillow beneath his head, and was probably sitting out in the kitchen with an open notebook and a scribbling, ink-stained hand, things like that didn’t matter anymore, and Jinki liked that Kibum felt comfortable enough to speak freely, though quietly.

                Jinki hummed softly to let Kibum know he was awake and listening. Kibum dropped an arm over the side of his bed and let it dangle, a soft blurred shape, only slightly less dark grey than the surrounding air, down toward Minho’s bunk. An offered gesture, or an almost silent request. Jinki let it rest for barely a moment before shifting around on his bed, settling onto his side and reaching up with his right hand to tangle his fingers with Kibum’s, for some slight warmth, some comfort, before they both fell asleep.

                “There’s something off about Taemin, lately,” Kibum said under his breath a moment later, almost weaving it into a sigh.

                Jinki smiled into his pillow, one side of his mouth pulling up further than the other stifled. “Minho thinks so, too, I think.” He thought about how Minho's cheeks pinkened for the briefest instant when Taemin eagerly took Jinki's place on the cushion next to his, leaning into Minho's side in the excitement of the game, after two rounds of digital soccer. He felt ready to drift off to sleep. The warmth in Kibum’s palm made up for the chill his upper arm was getting, pulled upward and out of the blanket. He knew when they both dropped off, their hands would fall apart, as usual, and eventually the chill would spur him to tug his blankets up further around his chin, and his legs would curl up beneath him. Kibum let out a small laugh. “I’m…glad, I think. Which seems weird, but okay.” His thoughts drifted to Jonghyun as he closed his eyes to welcome blacker darkness.


End file.
